Company Wants to Locate Spa-Like Medical Marijuana Retail Downtown

Above: Interior design elements included in PincannaRx’s presentation for East Lansing.

It’s been almost two years since the East Lansing Cosi restaurant closed because the national parent company filed for bankruptcy. That key downtown retail location has been vacant ever since.

Now a major player in Michigan’s medical marijuana industry wants to use the space to create a spa-like “provisioning center” (the State of Michigan’s term for a medical marijuana sale location) to serve individuals who have marijuana prescriptions. But to do so, the company will have to convince a majority of East Lansing’s City Council.

Jerry Griffin, representing Compassionate Advisors and their subsidiary brand PincannaRx, came to East Lansing’s Downtown Development Authority (DDA) meeting on May 23 to encourage the DDA to take a closer look at the company’s work and their plan for an East Lansing provisioning center. Griffin told the DDA he knows it does not have decision-making power on this issue – the decision is up to City Council – but that the DDA’s position matters to Council. He asked the DDA to have another look.

As ELi reported, in March, the DDA voted against recommending provisioning centers in DDA district. The DDA voted 6-3 against, with some members expressing concerns about the way provisioning centers in Lansing look and function. There was also concern about a proliferation of provisioning centers downtown.

Design renderings provided by Compassionate Advisors indicate that the company envisions PincannaRx’s East Lansing location looking like a high-end health spa, without exterior signs and symbols referencing marijuana. Griffin confirmed that is the plan—to keep the location looking like an upscale business that enhances the downtown.

Below: A rendering of the storefront from PincannaRx’s presentation.

In a letter and in his presentation at the May 23 meeting, Griffin told the DDA that because of recommended restrictions keeping provisioning centers away from daycares and schools and limiting them in terms of proximity to each other, if PincannaRx opened in the Cosi location, it would be the only provisioning center downtown.

Griffin also told the DDA that the “industry is maturing quickly. Since the State passed legislation [for medical marijuana provisioning], some activity has not been helpful to the industry.” He named Lansing’s experience as “not helpful.”

But, he said, Compassionate Advisors has a strong track record of “business acumen” and “development history” as well as “dedication to patient care.” The presentation submitted includes floor plans that show an “educational area,” a clinic, retail space, an office, and a safe.

Griffin explained to the DDA that Compassionate Advisors is now in partnership with the University of Michigan’s Health System, participating in an NIH-funded grant including a study of 800 patients. Compassionate Advisors treats over half of pediatric patients using cannabis in the State of Michigan, according to Griffin. (Marijuana is sometimes prescribed for cancer-related pain and seizure disorders but has generally been poorly studied because of federal restrictions on marijuana research.)

At the May 23 meeting, the DDA did not further discuss the matter and it has given no indication it will revisit its recommendation vote.

In contrast to the DDA, East Lansing’s Planning Commission unanimously supported allowing for a provisioning center at the location identified by Compassionate Advisors. As ELi reported, Planning Commission took the position that it should be treated like any other legitimate business by the City, given that the State of Michigan has specifically moved to allow and regulate it and given that East Lansing’s Council chose to “opt in” to the system.

While Council has already voted to allow (with limits) marijuana growing, processing, transporting, and testing, it has not yet voted on whether to allow provisioning centers. The State does not allow municipalities to directly tax marijuana sales (or the sale of anything else), but the State does have plans to share marijuana sales tax revenues with municipalities in which those sales occur.

This economic consideration may come into play with Council’s decision, along with considerations about appearance, hosting a federally-illegal activity, and so on. Written communications to Council in the last few months have included numerous communications from national groups opposed to marijuana, including National Families in Action, that warn about the dangers of marijuana use, for example, in teens and pregnant women.

When Council voted on the ordinance regulating marijuana growing, processing, transporting, and testing in East Lansing, the vote came in 4-1, with Ruth Beier in opposition. She said she was not opposed to the availability of marijuana for medical uses, but that she did not want marijuana industry activities located near neighborhoods that expressed opposition.

On the issue of provisioning centers, no downtown residents have come to Council to express support or opposition. In the last public discussion of the matter at City Council, it was Mayor Pro Tem Erik Altmann who expressed the strongest opposition to locating a provisioning center downtown.

In 2015, East Lansing voters passed a City Charter Amendment locally decriminalizing “the use, possession or transfer of less than 1 ounce of marijuana, on private property, or transportation of less than 1 ounce of marijuana, by a person who has attained the age of 21 years.” That vote came in 65% in favor, 35% against, with about 4,700 votes cast.

Update: When this article was originally published, it concluded with the sentence, "East Lansing voters have not been asked to vote directly on the issue of medical uses of marijuana." A reader pointed out this is not accurate. In 2008, Michigan voters were asked to vote on the Michigan Medical Marijuana Initiative (Proposition 1) and East Lansing voters voted 75.6% in favor (16,696 voted "yes") and 24.4% against (5,398 voted "no"). We thank the ELi reader who pointed this out.